News Archive - September 2012

Restaurant raid finds 5 illegal workers

Five men have been found working illegally at a restaurant in north Wales, the UK Border Agency (UKBA) has confirmed.

Officers from the immigration authority received information on the Radhuni restaurant on Denbigh High Street. They acted on the intelligence and visited the restaurant on the evening of September 21st.

Upon checking the UK immigration status of the employees, they discovered five men were working there illegally. A 40-year-old was found to be working in breach of the conditions of his UK visa; a 36-year-old was shown to have entered the country illegally, while the three remaining workers had all stayed in the country following the expiration of their UK visas.

Two of the men have been taken to St Asaph police station but have since been transferred to immigration removal centres, while the other three are required to report regularly to a local police station while their emergency travel documents are organised ahead of their removal from the country.

The restaurant itself could be issued with fines of up to £10,000 for each worker who was employed illegally. To avoid these penalties, they will be required to provide evidence that they conducted the required right-to-work checks on the staff before they were employed.

Richard Johnson from the UKBA commented on the case and the illegal working situation in the UK in general: "The UKBA is determined to stamp out the problem of illegal working and abuse of the immigration system.

"We want the public to contact us if they have any information on businesses or people who are breaking immigration law."

He added that the Radhuni case is "sending a simple, clear message to people who are in the country illegally - more operations like this one in Denbigh are planned and you will be caught".